The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this disclosure and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Computing and electronic device often implement security measures to prevent unauthorized entities from accessing data or communications of the device. Some of these security measures encrypt the data or communications using a particular key that is assigned to the device. Typically, the encrypted data or communicated information is decrypted by the device with the same key or by an intended recipient that possesses a copy of the key or a complimentary key. Alternately, the device can decrypt, with the key, data received from a source that encrypted the data with a complementary key for secure communication.
The key of the device, however, is typically assigned to device memory in a manufacturing environment that is non-secure. In some cases, malicious entities exploit security vulnerabilities of device programming equipment or the device itself during the key assignment process to access the device's key when exposed. In such cases, the third party or malicious entity can then defeat the security measures that rely on that key, including the subsequent encryption of the device's data and communications. As such, exposing the key of the device during the key assignment process may compromise security of the device and other devices or networks that use the same or similar keys.